Writing Your Blog Post: First Steps

If you haven’t already done so, please create a list of everything you’ve learned about your research topic. If you have already created a list of everything you’ve learned about your research topic, make a list of what you wanted to know but couldn’t find information about.

Another Preliminary Step: Labeling Your Source Texts Take out each article or book you found while researching, and in big letters, write the last name of its author at the top of the page. Then highlight the author’s name so it really stands out.

Turn Your What-I’ve-Learned List into a Series of Topic Sentences and Supporting Details

What are topic sentences? What are supporting details? How do they relate?

Topic Sentence Expresses the main idea of the paragraph: not what the paragraph is “about” but the point the paragraph makes about the subject Often appears at the beginning of the paragraph.

Supporting Details Elaborate Build On Develop or expand or explain the point made in the topic sentence

How about an example? The summer picnic gave ladies a chance to show off their baking hands. On the barbecue pit, chickens and spareribs sputtered in their own fat and in a sauce whose recipe was guarded in the family like a scandalous affair. However, every true baking artist could reveal her prize to the delight and criticism of the town. Orange sponge cakes and dark brown mounds dripping Hershey’s chocolate stood layer to layer with ice-white coconuts and light brown caramels. Pound cakes sagged with their buttery weight and small children could no more resist licking the icings than their mothers could avoid slapping the sticky fingers. from I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

Let’s do a bit more practice identifying topic sentences and supporting details.

Now let’s return to the list you’ve created.

Let’s say you researched love. Here’s your list about what you learned: Love has a lot of emotions. What are the emotions that make up love? Now what? What question(s) can this writer ask him/herself to take the next writing step?

You’ve asked, What are those emotions? What’s the answer? Let’s see.

Love has a lot of emotions. hope passion attraction fear anger jealousy sadness happiness

We have our topic sentence and supporting bullet points. What’s next?

We realize each emotion needs to be discussed in its own paragraph. Let’s look at an example together.

Hope is a big part of love. We’ve got the topic sentence. Now what?

Hope is a big part of love. Define “hope” Say what my research says about how hope connects to love Say more what my research says about how hope connects to love

Hope is a big part of love. Definition: feeling of possibility about the future, good life can become better Sense that their lives can be fuller Hope and openness

Hope is a big part of love. Definition: feeling of possibility about the future, good life can become better (Adler) Sense that their lives can be fuller (Lumm) Hope and openness (Stevens)

Now it’s your turn. 1. Choose one item from your what-I’ve-learned- about-my-topic list to develop into a paragraph. Be sure to choose a main point rather than a supporting detail. 2. Write that main point as a topic sentence. 3. Create a bulleted list of details that support this main point. 4. Next to each bullet point, write down the author of the article where you found the information in this bullet point.

Next step: Write your supporting details in sentence form to create a paragraph.

Hope is a big part of love. Hope is a feeling of possibility about the future, a sense that even a good life can become better (Adler). To experience love, people need to have a sense that their lives can be fuller. They have to hope for even more meaning and emotional satisfaction than they already have (Lumm). When people are hopeful, they are also open, including to other people. This openness allows people to connect to one another and that connection can develop into love (Stevens).

Be sure to write at least four sentences in your supporting detail section for this paragraph. More is fine, too!

Hope is a big part of love. Hope is a feeling of possibility about the future, a sense that even a good life can become better (Adler). To experience love, people need to have a sense that their lives can be fuller. They have to hope for even more meaning and emotional satisfaction than they already have (Lumm). When people are hopeful, they are also open, including to other people. This openness allows people to connect to one another and that connection can develop into love (Stevens).

Your turn: Write your supporting details in sentence form to create a paragraph.

Let’s come back to the sample paragraph. What supporting detail(s) does this writer need to add? What questions could you as a reader ask to help this writer find additional supporting details?

Hope is a big part of love. Hope is a feeling of possibility about the future, a sense that even a good life can become better (Adler). To experience love, people need to have a sense that their lives can be fuller. They have to hope for even more meaning and emotional satisfaction than they already have (Lumm). What kind of emotional satisfaction? Do your sources give any specific examples that you could include? When people are hopeful, they are also open, including to other people. This openness allows people to connect to one another and that connection can develop into love (Stevens). Do your sources tell about any research about this issue of openness? What do they say? How do you know whether you’re open enough? How can a connection become love?

Now it’s your turn. 1. Trade papers with your seat partner. 2. Read what he/she has written so far. 3. Write at least one question to help your partner develop his/her supporting details more. 4. Trade back. 5. Read your partner’s question. 6. Do your sources provide information that could answer this question? If yes, write that information in your own words, and add it to your paragraph. 7. If not, write that question down as something you might need to research.

Let’s take a break!

Now it’s time to write another paragraph for your blog post.

1. Choose one item from your what-I’ve-learned-about-my-topic list to develop into a paragraph. Be sure to choose a main point rather than a supporting detail. 2. Write that main point as a topic sentence. 3. Create a bulleted list of details that support this main point. 4. Next to each bullet point, write down the author of the article where you found the information in this bullet point. 5. Write your topic sentence and supporting details in paragraph form. 6. Trade with a partner, and read each other’s second paragraphs. 7. Write questions that will help your partner develop at least one of his/her supporting points. 8. Trade back. If your sources provide information that could answer this question, write that information in your own words, and add it to your paragraph. 9. If not, write that question down as something you might need to research. 10. Be sure to write at least four sentences in your supporting detail section for this paragraph. More is fine, too!

Please come to next class with at least four paragraphs of your blog post written. If you can finish this today in class, fabuloso! If not, please do so for homework.

1. Write a total of four topic sentences. 2. Write the bullet-pointed specific details for those topic sentences (including the last name of the author of each source)